The detective sat down opposite me. She had an expression of wary patience.
‘I’m having a busy day. So?’ Kelly Jordan made a gesture inviting me to speak.
‘You remember I showed you the drawing by my daughter? The drawing of a woman falling from a tower?’
‘Yes, I remember.’
She said this like she was talking of a faintly unpleasant memory, a headache or a twisted ankle.
I took out my phone and looked at it.
‘Sorry. I’ve lost it. Hang on, it won’t take a minute.’ After a little more than a minute of frantic clicking and scrolling, I found the local news story and handed the phone to the detective, who read it and handed the phone back.
‘So what do you think?’ I said.
‘What do you think?’
‘Isn’t it significant? A woman falling from a tower. It’s like Poppy’s drawing.’
Kelly Jordan took a breath.
‘As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this happened yesterday. So the woman fell from the tower after your daughter did her drawing, not before. I don’t really see the point of this.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought. It’s not just the picture. When I talked to Poppy, she said that a woman did fall from the tower. So obviously I thought it was about something that had happened.’
‘Or that she thought had happened. Or imagined had happened.’
‘Yes, well, whatever. But this morning I was taking Poppy to school and she said that she’d been to the zoo. That seemed weird to me because I didn’t think she’d ever been to one; I would have known if Jason had taken her. So I asked her teacher and it turned out that they’re planning a visit to the zoo next term. In the future.’
There was a glazed expression on the woman’s face, but I persevered.
‘It was like this glimpse into the brain of a three-year-old. Poppy’s not that clear about the difference between what has happened and what will happen. Or at least she’s not clear about it in her language.’
Now there was a long pause. Kelly Jordan’s eyes were almost closed, like she was doing a complicated mental calculation. Finally she shook her head.
‘I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘What problem does that solve? Are you saying that your daughter is some kind of clairvoyant?’
‘No, no, not at all. Poppy’s picture scared me and she was obviously scared herself in some way. And still is. But I couldn’t work out what exactly it was a picture of. But now I think I’ve got an idea. Poppy heard someone saying, I’ll push you over the balcony. Future tense. Poppy drew the picture. And then a few days later they did push the woman off the balcony.’
‘They?’
‘He. Her. It must be a he, mustn’t it? He threatened to do it and then he did it.’
‘That’s an awful lot to extract from a little news story that says nothing about a third party. It just says she was found at the bottom of the block of flats. She may have fallen. She may have jumped. It doesn’t even give her name.’
‘I came in before and you said that there was no crime to investigate. Now there’s this. If a woman is found at the bottom of a block of flats then surely there’s some kind of police investigation, isn’t there?’
Kelly Jordan drummed lightly on the desktop with her fingers.
‘How’s your daughter doing?’ she said.
‘Not well. She’s sleeping badly. She’s behaving strangely. She’s rough with her friends and clingy with me.’
‘I know it’s not my place to say, Tess, but maybe you’d be better thinking about your daughter than looking around for a crime that doesn’t exist.’
‘You’re right. It’s not your place to say. It’s your place to investigate crimes when people like me report them.’
‘Careful,’ said Kelly in a sharper tone. ‘Most of my colleagues would have thrown you out the first time and not seen you at all today. Remember that when you come in here and tell me how to do my job.’
‘Sorry,’ I muttered.
‘When I have time – if I have time – I’ll make a call and if there seems any point to it at all, I’ll send someone over. If anything comes up, I’ll let you know.’
‘I’ll call you and find out what you’ve discovered.’
‘No!’ She looked alarmed. ‘Don’t call me. Just go home and play with your daughter.’
I bit back a reply. After all, she was being nice to me. She had listened to me when others might have turned me away. That was something.
As I was walking out of the police station, a fragment of a conversation floated into my mind. I stopped at a café where, sitting by the window with a cup of coffee, I took my laptop out of my backpack and opened it.
In Lewisham with Fliss. That’s what Ben had said when I had first met him in Brixton. So I didn’t just have his name, but that he had lived in Lewisham, with someone called Fliss. Was she his wife? Jason had said his marriage had broken up.
Fliss Carey wasn’t a common name. I typed it into the search bar. Nothing. I added ‘Lewisham’. Nothing.
I took a sip of my coffee, typed in ‘Carey, Lewisham’. And I found her, or at least, I found someone called Felicity Carey Connors who lived in Lewisham and was a cello teacher. Could that be her? I hadn’t imagined Ben being married to a cello teacher. I clicked on her image: she had a pleasing face, softly oval, with pale brown hair tied back and round glasses.
There was a phone number and an email address. After some hesitation, I wrote her a message:
Hi, I was hoping I could meet you and ask your advice. I am free this weekend. Thanks, Tess.
Vague enough for her to think I wanted a cello teacher, but not a lie – not quite.